green

During our stay, Ted kept an eye on the weather and saw some large winter storms heading our way.  Our original plan was to leave TX on Wednesday, spending Christmas Eve through the weekend in NC, but with the turbulent weather on the way he decided we should depart a day early to avoid them.

Tuesday morning was calm as we left Texas, with clouds below and haze above.  This leg was short and uneventful, just the way we like it: a little panettone for breakfast, a little knitting, and watching clouds out the windows.

The Greenville FBO lent us a van to drive into town and directed us to Sherman’s Restaurant for lunch, one of the few remaining local-owned restaurants (they like to support local businesses, and we do, too).  After the Sherman’s Burger and some southern sides, we headed back to the airport for our next leg of the day…

Ted saw some icing forecasts in yesterday’s weather reports and thought we might need to wait until midday to depart, but the morning’s reports were far more favorable, so off to the airport.

The Santa Fe night was quite frosty, however, so the plane needed to be de-iced before departing (I spent this time in front of the FBO fireplace; sometimes it’s good to be the passenger

The landscape during this leg was far less dramatic and colorful, so not so many highlights this time around.  We crossed over the VEGGE intersection (woo), and I spent some time working on my Lizard Ridge project.

The excitement began when we were coming in to land at Amarillo.  Runway 4 at AMA is big.  Really big.  13,500 feet long big  (To put this into context:  our home airport is big for us and that’s just shy of 5,000 feet long — half that is a very comfortable length, says Ted).  As we landed, I noticed this huge gray plane off to the right.  It was so low to the ground I thought it didn’t have wheels and must have been left there as more of a decoration, but as we neared it was clear this was a very active plane with all four propellers spinning.

It wanted to depart; we wanted to leave the runway and it was occupying our nearest exit (and the next taxiway would be a considerable distance ahead — did I mention how big this runway is?).  So rather than have us keep going and slow up the festivities, the tower directed the C-130 to pull out into position so we could sneak around behind it and out of the way.

The C-130 is ginormous–the kind of plane you use to transport large cargo–and it looked heavy as it took off.  The view of this behemoth directly in front of us on a runway is something we’ll likely not see again for a very long time.

World Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP) is a global, annual observance to promote the art by knitting in public. My knitting guild planned to meet at an outdoor area of a local mall, knit for a few hours, then maybe do lunch and some shopping — ya know, make a day of it. I’d tried contacting the mall Director of Operations several times in the month prior, leaving messages indicating what we planned to do to ensure it would be OK. Although I talked to some very nice people from the office, they all deferred to the elusive DoO, who never called me back.

So we decided to wing it. It was a beautiful day, and a bloodmobile was parked in the parking lot soliciting donors… we assembled on some of the benches, and some folks brought their own chairs, and we got down to the serious business of knitting in public.

Before we even got to this point, however, we were surprised when a gentleman approached us and asked “Are you the knitting group?” At the time there were only two or three of us who were looking for a place to roost, so we hadn’t even sat down to knit, but somehow he identified us and began to explain his interest. His mother passed away recently. She was a crafter, a crocheter and knitter. And she had a LOT of yarn. He already held previous sales from her enormous stash, but still had a lot left and sought out knitting groups who might appreciate some free yarn. He read about our WWKIP event on our Web site and came specifically to meet us. We now have two large garbage bags full of yarn, which we will distribute amongst the guild to use for charity projects. Big thanks to ??? for this wonderful gift!

Other folks began to show up, and we assembled at an open area near the parking lot, and proceed to knit and chat and enjoy each other’s company. Passersby would look, and sometimes ask questions. We made the acquaintance of a lovely lady who used to knit but hadn’t taken her needles up in many years. We invited her to sit and knit with us — she was meeting her daughter for lunch, but “she said she was in traffic on the freeway, so I suppose I could sit for a while…” The weather was fabulous, and a sense of general goodwill and pleasantries filled the air…

That is until the mall cops showed up. On Segways, no less. I explained what we were doing, and about my inability to get a response from the mall DoO. Radios were whipped out. Conversations were had. An apology from the DoO was extended (he “forgot” to call me back) — BUT we couldn’t continue to meet because we hadn’t filled out the appropriate paperwork (which we didn’t know needed to be filled out because no one told us this was necessary) and could we come back another day? We again explained it was an annual event, so the “next day” we could meet would be the third Saturday in June, 2009. I really felt for the main mall cop guy, as he clearly understood our mission was one of goodness–we were no threat to well-being and safety of mall staff and patrons. He confessed that if it was up to him he’d just walk away and let us continue to knit, but he had his orders and was bound to obey them.

We mulled our options: others might be coming, we didn’t want to leave in case latecomers arrived. Mall cop had a second conversation on the radio and returned saying we could continue to knit, so long as we used the mall benches (no personal chairs) and took down our signs.

Some folks left; others of us split up and sat on their benches. It wasn’t quite what we originally had in mind, but we still did make an impact, albeit in a more subtle way. Imagine you’re out and about and you see three women sitting and knitting. You keep walking and spy another little group. Then another one. By the last group you’ve GOT to ask what’s going on, which is what happened. We handed out our fliers and invited people to knit or come by our next guild meeting.

So despite our setbacks and getting our party broken up, we still achieved what we set out to do, which was promote the art of knitting. But next year? Maybe we’ll go to a park instead…

Oh. Dear.

At my January 2008 knitting guild meeting, I won one of our monthly raffle prizes: a book teaching basic Tunisian Crochet patterns and some hooks.

Armed with that and a tutorial on stitchdiva.com, I started making a scarf using the basic Tunisian Crochet stitch, alternating three different colored yarns (all of which were left over from a few other projects)

For those who aren’t familiar, Tunisian Crochet–also called Afghan Stitch–is like the fiber love child of knitting and crochet. You use a hook (like crochet) but you work rows of stitches (like knitting). You don’t turn your work, but rather create rows by picking up stitches right to left, then “casting off” left to right. It’s an interesting hybrid craft.

It produces a nice thick fabric, which almost looks woven. The wrong side looks like striped garter stitch.

I started using the three color yarns because I thought the combination looked pretty, but it had the side benefit of making it much easier to identify the vertical bars you pick up on your right-to-left passes–great for a newbie like myself. My tension is pretty uneven, but the stitch is very forgiving and still looks great.

This one’s a scarf for Ted, but I think it would make a fabulous pillow, tote bag or purse as well.

I started this as a travel project–something to do during our journey eastward to visit family over the holidays in 2007. I’d seen the pattern on Knitty and thought it I’d make a fun hat for my nephew, so I picked the black and army green as colors he might like.

This pattern is fun to knit. It’s simple enough that you can knit while distracted or in social situations, but keeps your attention with all the short-rows. And because it’s knitted in segments, you psychologically feel a little sense of closure after each one.

It’s a quick knit, too–great if you need a little something for a last-minute gift. Although my time for completion seems long, this is largely because there were big spans of time in-between my knitting sessions. I’m kind of a pokey knitter, but I think I could probably complete this in a few days.

The hat is a little pointy at the top, but it is less noticeable when being worn and I’m pleased with the way it turned out. I’ve now looked at other examples of the hat on Ravelry and find I like the more subtle color combinations (the original pattern on Knitty features a very high contrast combos).

Squirm! Santa Monica, CA

Knitting at the fair

Happy dog!

Where do I bank? >PFF<…

In the Home & Garden pavilion

Bungee jumping

Pure. Fun.